President Obama Wants Government Credit Cards to Go Chip-and-Pin

October 17, 2024 by

Image credit: Steve Jurvetson

President Obama visited the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on October 17th and in doing so, revealed his plans to heighten security in government provided payments.

The President plans to sign an executive order that would improve security on government issued payment cards tied to benefits, such as Social Security.

This means that the government is integrating EMV, or chip-and-pin cards, that would shore up security. This comes prior to the upcoming EMV migration mandated by October 2015, which would put the liability of data breaches on the retailers if they do not upgrade to support EMV cards.

With the string of data breaches that have hit major retailers in the last year, including Target, JPMorgan Chase, and Home Depot, it’s clear that legacy magnetic stripe cards just aren’t enough to protect consumers.

By upgrading government payment cards, it could make consumers more familiarized with this “new” technology, while putting pressure on stakeholders to move up their timetable on upgrading to EMV.

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